October 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — On Tuesday evening, a massive, angry crowd gathered outside the Toronto Public Library to protest an event being held inside. Hostility and molten fury bubbled just beneath the surface as hundreds of assembled men and women, wielding signs featuring slogans such as “No Free Speech for Hate Speech” and launching into chants such as “Trans rights are human rights!” and “Take back TPL [Toronto Public Library]!” and “Shame! Shame!” When it was time for the attendees of the offending event to leave, they had to run a gauntlet of contempt and angry shouting.
And what was this offending event, do you ask? It was panel put on by a group called Radical Feministe Unite-Toronto, who had rented space from the Toronto Public Library and invited the founder of Feminist Current, Meghan Murphy, to speak. Murphy, you may recall, was banned from Twitter for her stubborn refusal to agree with the idea that men can become women and, despite being pro-abortion and pro–gay rights, has found herself the object of the progressive Left’s fervent hatred. For weeks, the LGBT crowd has been trying to get the event cancelled, accusing Murphy of being a vicious and hateful bigot.
What is mind-boggling about the LGBT movement’s attempt to shut down a woman who would have checked all the right boxes just a few years ago is not that they have again proven themselves to be opponents of free speech — their totalitarian instincts are obvious to anyone with eyeballs and a brain stem. Rather, it is the amount of mainstream support their campaign to smear and silence a pro-gay feminist has received. In a particularly disgusting interview, for example, Carol Off of the CBC compared Murphy to a white supremacist and all but demanded that city librarian Vickery Bowles cancel the event, despite Bowles’s impressive attempts to patiently explain the concept of free speech to the government-funded hack subjecting her to shockingly stupid questions.
Politicians soon joined the clamor, calling on Bowles to violate the Toronto Public Library’s own policies and cancel Murphy’s event. City councillors Mike Layton and Kristyn Wong-Tam put a motion before Toronto’s city council demanding a change in the library’s policies to ensure that nobody who believes that a man cannot become a woman will ever have the chance to speak there again. Mayor John Tory, who celebrated Mother’s Day this year by attending a drag queen strip show (and even put some cash in a drag queen’s thong), also weighed in, somberly stating that the city’s public buildings should be held “to the highest standard,” meaning that Murphy should be cancelled. Predictably, Toronto Pride warned that the TPL hosting Murphy would have “consequences to our relationship.” Nice little library there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.
To her credit, Vickery Bowles held firm, calmly insisting to anyone who would listen that freedom of speech is a paramount value. The LGBT thugs promptly turned on her, too, and are demanding her resignation for following the TPL’s policies on free speech rather than silencing someone they disagree with when they tell her to. The LGBT crowd are far past asking for “equality” — now, they are imperiously demanding that anyone who is not on board with the latest fetish or fantasy they’ve conjured up be gagged and banned from the public square. The public square, in their minds, is for Pride Parades, Drag Queen Storytime, and other obscene events. (Although, hilariously, “Fay and Fluffy” of Drag Queen Storytime have threatened to cut ties with the TPL over Murphy’s speech. Perhaps the key to getting rid of DQS is simply to platform feminists in libraries across Canada so the drag queens scurry off and sulk.)
All of that aside, I will admit that I felt a distinct sense of unease as I watched the videos of the seething crowd in front of the Toronto Public Library and watched the social media lynch mobs circle this left-wing, pro-choice feminist. (One of them tweeted: “Mayor Tory/Councillors: Surely you see what is happening tonight. This is a movement. The train has left the station. Get on or get out of the way. Tell the Chief Librarian to resign TONIGHT. Or face unrelenting wrath.”) My uneasiness did not come from the fact that a bunch of angry LGBT folks and their grovelling allies were out protesting — I actually believe in freedom of speech. It came from a simple thought that crossed my mind as I watched them bay for Murphy’s head: If this is how much they hate a pro-gay feminist, and these are the lengths they will go to in order to ruin her life, what will they do to us when they get the chance?
I think we know.
These people do not believe in freedom of speech. They do not believe in freedom of association. They do not believe in religious liberty, or parental rights in education. They desire only one thing: total cultural dominance, where everyone must either bend the knee to the rainbow flag or face the fire, whether it is an abortion-supporting radical feminist or a free speech–supporting city librarian. Their blitzkrieg has cut through our institutions at breathtaking speed — and we need to understand that they are just getting started.
Jonathon’s new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Jason Jones, president and founder of Human Rights Education Organization and Movie to Movement and producer of the pro-life movie Bella. Jones experienced the heartbreaking tragedy of losing his first daughter to abortion. His high school girlfriend’s father took her to get an abortion while Jones was away at basic training. “I exploded!” Jones shares. He goes on to say that he didn’t even know abortion was legal until he found out he had lost his child to abortion.
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